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wince. And as she dropped her gaze, she saw the scar on his chest. The wound where she'd stabbed him.
    Guilt tore through her over what she should never have done.
    "Why don't you just finish the job," he said, his tone hostile and deadly.
    "We don't want to hurt you."
    He laughed bitterly. "My wounds and the glee they had in their eyes when they gave them to me tells me a different story."
    She brushed the hair back from his forehead to see a vicious cut that ran along his brow. Blood poured from his nose and lips. "I'm sorry."
    "We're all sorry for something. Why don't you be an animal for once and just kill me?" He glared at her. "You might as well. I'm not going to tell you shit."
    "We need to know what happened to the lion."
    "Go to hell."
    "Fury—"
    "Don't you fucking dare use my name. I'm nothing but an animal to all of you. Believe me, all of you made it more than clear to me four hundred years ago when you beat me close to death and then dumped me out to die."
    "Fury—"
    He barked at her like a wolf. "Would you stop?" He continued making wolf noises. Sighing, Angelia shook her head. "No wonder they beat you."
    Baring his teeth in true canine fashion, he growled, then woofed. There was nothing human in the sound or his demeanor.
    Angelia stepped back.
    The moment she was away from him. Fury slumped on the ground and stopped making any sounds at all. He lay completely still.
    Was he dead?
    No, his chest was still moving. She could also hear his faint breathing. As she watched him, her thoughts turned to the past. To the young man she'd once been friends with. Even though he was younger than her by four years, there had been something about him that had touched her.
    Where Dare had always been arrogant and bossy, Fury had held a vulnerability that had made her protective of him. More than that, he'd never treated her as inferior. He'd seen her as a partner and confidant.
    "I'll be your family, Lia ." Those words haunted her. It had been Fury's vow to her once he'd learned that her family had been killed by the Katagaria —by his own father's pack. "I won't ever let the wolves hurt you. I swear it."
    Yet she'd stood by this morning while they'd tortured him relentlessly.
    It's nothing compared to what you did the last time you saw him.
    It was true. She hadn't stood by him then either, and he'd been beaten a lot worse than this.
    "Fury," she tried again. "Tell me what we need to know, and I promise you this will stop."
    He lifted his head up to pin her with a furious glare. "I don't betray my friends."
    "Don't you dare say that to me. I was protecting my people when I attacked you."
    He let out a disbelieving snort. "From mel They were my people, too."
    She shook her head in denial. "You don't have people. You're an animal."
    He twisted his lips into a vicious snarl. "Baby, you untie me, and I'll show you just how much of an animal the man in me really is. Trust me. He's a lot crueler than the wolf is."
    "Told you," Oscar said as he joined them in the tent. He angled the red-hot poker toward the flap. "You should leave. The stench of burning flesh is going to be hard on your nose."
    She saw the panic in Fury's eyes as he tried to scoot away from them.
    Oscar grabbed him by the hair and rolled him over. Fury kicked at him, but there wasn't much he could do given how tied up he was. Still he fought with a courage that was admirable.
    "Get out," Dare said as he entered the tent.
    As she started for the flap, Fury let out a howl so fierce and pain-filled that it shattered her soul. Turning, she saw that Oscar had dropped the poker across his left hip where it burned in a foul stench.
    Right or wrong, she couldn't let them do this to him anymore.
    She shoved Dare out of her way, then kicked Oscar back from Fury. Before they could recover themselves, she knelt by Fury's side and placed her hand on his shoulder. Using her powers, she took them out of the tent and moved them farther into the marsh where they'd been camped.